Air compressors?

Molerj · Jul 20, 2001

OK, now for air compressors. I am in need of a larger one. I have an old 1 hp that I bought
new but it is now undersized for my use. Suggestions; single stage, two stage, oiless (I
hate the noise of the oiless) ? I use it for a little bit of everything. I do lawn mower repairs as a side hobby
push & riders, (sometimes I wonder why) & use air tools for a lot of disassemble, reassemble. Also have
painted a few of my tractor projects (154 cub lo-boy & economy power king). I kind of
was thinking of a 60 gallon ingersoll rand single or two stage. I know the price of the two
stage is alot more, but then again it works alot easier & it probably would be the last one
I would buy. Also I was looking at prices in the Northern tool book & they sure vary alot
from what book you look at. A friend of mine gets a dealer book & their prices are different
too.

Bird · Jul 20, 2001

Molerj, if you'll go to the "Search" function near the top of the screen and search "All Forums" for the words "air compressor", you'll find a lot of discussion about them. I have a little sideline business of repairing automotive air tools, and of course, I've worked on just a few compressors as well, and have owned a variety of compressors over the years.

Now, it sounds as if you're going to use yours a lot, so stay away from the oiless (not only noisy, but if you run it for over 10 minutes at a time, you'll be rebuilding it every 6 to 8 months like I did when I owned one). I think you have started in the right direction for your shopping.

I'd recommend a 60 gallon tank, 230 volt, minimum of 10 cfm (preferably more), single stage (two stage is even better, but too expensive, in my opinion, unless you have a need for more than 120 psi), cast iron - not aluminum, and my strong preference is for the V-twin vs. inline cylinders (no scientific proof but I'm confident they cool better), and as big and deep a crankcase as possible. I tend to more or less ignore horsepower ratings on electric air compressor motors because they can be very misleading. Ingersoll Rand is a fine product, but you can very likely find cheaper ones that'll last a lifetime.

My personal compressor meets all the requirements listed above (and has a sight glass to check oil level). It's a Puma for which I paid $600 when it was on sale about 3 years ago.

Bird

MChalkley · Jul 20, 2001

Bird - As it so happens, I was considering purchase of a Coleman 27 gal vertical on wheels, 125 psi working pressure, 5.6 cu. ft. @90 psi, direct drive, 115v, 15A. The motor, compressor, and tank all have "Made in USA" on them. It's at Costco for $230. But it's oilless. I didn't realize they were prone to problems. Bummer... Is that inherent to the oil-less design? Or is it an implementation problem?

MarkC

Molerj · Jul 20, 2001

Thanks Bird. Not familiar with the Puma but I'll check around. If I remember right the IR
was around $550-600. Great board. I just found it this week. Can't get enough of it.

Bird · Jul 20, 2001

Mark, the oiless compressors work fine and last several years for home use to occasionally air up a tire or blow the dust out of something. I'm not familiar specifically with that Coleman, but believe it's the same as the Craftsman/DeVilbiss. Doesn't it have that nice cowling covering both the motor and the compressor. I've always said the cowling serves two purposes: (1) it hides the compressor because if you saw what you were getting you would't buy it (a very thin, teflon coated aluminum cup for the cylinder and a flat aluminum disk for a piston - as the teflon wears off they get noisier all the time), and (2) it contains the parts when they blow apart (really gets noisy when the squirrel cage turns loose). Look at the manual and see if it doesn't warn you to not run it for more than 10 minutes. The only good thing I can say about them is that they are cheap and you can completely rebuild it in less than an hour for less than $60./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif When the reed valves break from the heat - only about $13-$14, and if you have the Craftsman models, they even have two repair kits available, one includes the crankshaft, the other does not.

Bird

Anonymous Poster · Jul 20, 2001

Mark, I bought the Coleman you described. A local farm store went under and mark everything down 50%, got their price in writing and went to Lowes for an additional 10% off. That REALLY p%ssed off the Lowes store manager. Good thing they sold it to me, when I went back to the farm store the other one was gone.

It has been a good unit, used it to help my brother in law roof 3 houses, did all the trim work in the house we built and have blown up numerous flat tires. It recoveres quick enough but it is noisy as stated in another posting. The good point to oilless is the weight if you're moving it around, no cast iron sleeve which of course is another downside of oilless.

My 2 cents worth.

MChalkley · Jul 20, 2001

Bird, I don't remember a "nice cowling" - it looked pretty homely to me... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif. Here it is: http://www.colemanpowermate.com/products.asp?Type=compressor&Model=CL0502710. Is that the one? I didn't think the compressor looked all that cheesy, myself, but I'm not an expert on compressors. That's why I asked. Whadaya think?

MarkC

Bird · Jul 21, 2001

Mark, I don't claim to be an expert myself, and unfortunately, I'm not familiar with that Coleman and can't tell enough about it from the picture. It does look like it might be a little better than the Craftsman/DeVilbiss, but I just don't know. The place where I bought my current compressor is a dealership/factory authorized service for a number of brands, besides building their own, and their service man told me that you could normally expect any of the oiless compressors to last approximately one-tenth as long as one with oil in the crankcase. Now properly maintained, and with the oiless never running more than 10 minutes at a time and plenty of time to cool in between, he was talking 1,000 hours vs. 10,000 hours. A really good compressor costs more, but it sure doesn't cost 10 times as much as the oiless. On the other hand, if you can get 1,000 hours out of one and rebuild it for $40 to $65, maybe it's a good deal. And then again, I'm sure I probably never got 500 hours between rebuilds on mine.

Bird

MChalkley · Jul 21, 2001

Bird - Well, as Rosann Rosannadanna of Saturday Night Live fame used to say "Ne-e-e-ver mind..." I think I'll pass. I'm not the gambling type, especially not when I've been warned, and I'm not too keen on making plans to rebuild an air compressor before I even buy it, nor do I think it would be worth the money to ship it to Texas to have it rebuilt. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

If any of you guys see any nationally advertised deals on a decent one, please keep me posted.

MarkC

JOR_EL · Jul 21, 2001

<font color=blue>If any of you guys see any nationally advertised deals on a decent one, please keep me posted.
</font color=blue>

Mark, if you haven't seen it already, you might be interested in this post, and Bird's answer to it.

Larry

http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin...ment&Number=56167&page=&view=&sb=&part=3&vc=1